The 44th Transpac - trophies and tribulations

by Rich Roberts on 29 Jul 2007 A Pyewacket crew posed with its third Barn Door in the last six Transpacific Yacht Races to Hawaii, and Transpac Commodore Al Garnier handed the King Kalakaua perpetual and Governor of Hawaii take-home trophies to his brother Tom, skipper of Reinrag2, the overall winner on handicap time, but Friday night's awards affair was not the total tale of the 44th Transpac by far.

Even as the hardware and native Hawaiian-carved prizes were distributed, four of the 73 starters were still racing, five others had retired and two---a very thirsty Locomotion and a battered but upbeat Traveler---had just blown in, bringing relief to friends and family that they had made it at all.

Among those recognized were the race's oldest and youngest crews ever---Tango: Mike Abraham and Philip Rowe, both 70, and youngest (On the Edge of Destiny: Sean and Justin Doyle, Roscoe Fowler, Cameron Biehl and Ted White, average age 19.8.

Abraham and Rowe played it for laughs. They mounted the stage with feigned difficult, using canes.

Several veteran navigators agreed it was the weirdest Transpac for wind conditions in memory, not the usual pick-the-best-southern-route-under-the-Pacific High, hook-up-the-chute-and-fly drill, but a frantic search for breeze through a maze of pockets of light or little wind.

John Jourdane, the ocean racing author who sailed on Bob Lane's Medicine Man from Long Beach, said, 'I've done 25 Pacific crossings and this was the most unusual.'

In general, the various types of boats took two more days to sail the 2,225 nautical miles than they normally would.

'The best way to look at,' Stan Honey said, 'was that this wasn't a Transpac.'

For a while, the erratic conditions made Locomotion's prospects touch and go.

Jim McLeod, a crew member on Ed Feo's Andrews 45 from Long Beach, said, 'In the middle of the course we were behind the curve in our division [3] and our breeze was falling off. It was pretty ugly.'

Worse, McLeod said, 'Our water maker didn't work . . . went to use it and the membrane was shot. We had 30 gallons of water for eight guys and a week to go'---in sub-tropical temperatures.

Feo's crew was navigator Steve Rossi, Steve Beck, Chuck Simmons, MacLeod, Chris Deneen, Erik Berzins and Dave Millett. They started on Sunday, July 15.

'Our water maker checked out before the race,' Feo said. 'We got more concerned when Sunday [July 22] and Monday were really slow days, and we started to do the math. So I called the Coast Guard to see what our options were if we had to be supplied. [Then] we ran out of our tank water and got into our emergency supply. I monitored everybody for signs of trouble, making sure they were urinating on a regular schedule and things like that.'

Simmons said, 'The biggest disappointment was when I came up on deck one day. We had a six-gallon jug tied to the steering pedestal and it had sprung a leak. The third or fourth day we tried to make water and figured out, uh, we've got a problem.'

Near the end they had one or two gallons of water left, but they had nothing else until the race committee inspector had checked their boat and they could go ashore for . . . mai tais or beer?

'Water,' McLeod said while waiting to disembark. 'Just a drink of cold, fresh water.'

At the same time, Traveler's log was an 18-day litany of trouble. Owner/skipper Michael Lawler of Newport Beach turned his North Wind 47 around an hour after his July 9 start in Aloha B class to seek medical help for crew member Scott Schubert, who had gashed a finger. They re-started nearly six hours later.

But their troubles weren't over. Lawler's log continues: 'Day Two, on the west side of San Clemente Island, Traveler accidentally headed into the middle of a major naval training exercise with live ammo and were forced by an escorting Navy helicopter to divert their course by 10 miles out of the direction they were heading.

'Day Six (July 14) at 2:00 a.m., Barbara Burdick, Traveler's helmsman at the time, shouted out to her crew mates, 'I've lost the steering.' Next to 'we're sinking' or 'man overboard,' those are probably the most dreaded words you want to hear when you are over 400 miles out at sea. Within a few seconds, the entire crew of six men and two women jumped into action, identified the problem and got the boat under control. Somehow the threaded steering arm became disconnected from the rudder post.

'Day Seven, again with Barbara at the wheel and at about 2 in the morning, she called for help from the off-watch crew. The spinnaker pole had become separated from the mast . . . and the spinnaker with the pole still attached to the clew were dangerously flying around the foredeck out of control. Again, within a couple of minutes, the problem was fixed.

'On Day Eight, the steering failed yet again, but it was an entirely different problem. The nut holding the sprocket to the chain somehow came loose so the steering wheel was not turning the rudder. This was fixed in about 10 minutes.

'Day Eleven, the spinnaker broke at the head and was in the water being dragged. Traveler has a spare spinnaker, but they were unable to launch it until they could see what the problem was at the top of the mast. Kurt [Roll] volunteered to go up to the top of the mast to inspect and repair the problem at dawn.'

They finished without further woes, but wait.

'The spinnaker blew out in a gust when we were taking it down after the finish,' Lawler said. 'Then we tried to start the engine and it wouldn't start. Fortunately, we had a couple of power boaters on board and they got it going.'

Lawler's crew besides Scott, Burdick and Roll was David Beek, Jim Palmer, Kathy Smith, Schubert and Phillip Laplante. They're on their way home by air, but Lawler and Burdick, not discouraged by the experience, plan to sail on from here. After all, their sail number is 7305.

'That's the number I picked for my boat for the day I met the love of my life,' Lawler said. 'I was walking down this very same dock two years ago when I saw her on another boat. I asked her if she wanted to go to breakfast at the Hawaii Yacht Club, and she said yes. Right away we started planning to do this race. It's the first leg of a three-year world cruise [continuing] to Tahiti.'

Then there was another intrepid competitor, Lady Liberty, also in Aloha B, whose skipper, John Wallner of Calabasas, Calif., reported Friday morning: 'Just as we were triumphantly calling in our 100-mile [to go] report the whisker pole bent double in a strong gust and crashed to the deck. The jib went wild, and the boat spun out of control. The whisker pole is bent beyond repair. The lifeline parted due to the impact of the falling pole.

'As soon as we secured the wreckage, I tried calling Transpac at Ala Wai to verify they got our 100-mile report. In the middle of the conversation a huge wind gust came and knocked me over and the satellite phone out of my hand and across the room and gave us a near knockdown. We don’t know what our new ETA is, but it’s going to be later than we thought. As I write, another large squall is making our life interesting. We are in no danger, within sight of land [and] our cell phones work.'

More information and results: www.transpacificyc.org